What does a modern monastery look like?
The Monastic Academy is a residential contemplative training center striving to address the existential risks to life on Earth. Each day is a mixture of intensive meditation practice, physical labor, intellectual study, non-profit work, and community involvement. We start early, end late, and train six days-a-week, year-round.
In any given week, we are observing either a work period (a “Responsibility Week”) or a
retreat (an “Awakening Week”).
Responsibility Weeks
During Responsibility Weeks we meditate for several hours a day and strive to maintain clarity while running the non-profit, engaging with community members, and deepening our collective intelligence.
We begin with chanting and meditation at 4:35am each morning, followed by a silent meal ceremony. From there, we move into service work.
During this work period the responsibilities are divided amongst various teams. The majority of community members do physical labor to maintain the buildings and grounds, while some work on more complex tasks like designing online courses, distributing media, and running the administration. All of this is in service of developing a wise and compassionate collective that can discover a way to scale the Dharma in the digital age.
After this period of service, we come together for another meal ceremony to silently eat or discuss current events. We do chores together after lunch, and then have a few hours of free time to practice on our own, spend time together, or stay abreast of the world.
At 3:30pm, we enter into an hour of vigorous exercise to bring the practice into movement, ground ourselves in the body, and cultivate an energy that can carry us for the rest of the day. This is followed by shower and study hour where we engage in independent study of Buddhist doctrine and analyze the mind running the modern world.
Subsequently, we have a 1.5 hour block which rotates between various activities. Generally this is a time to discuss and build upon the materials from the study period. The Buddhism for AI series is a good example of the style of teachings given during this block.
We then enter into meditation at 7:00pm each evening, followed by chanting, which ends around 9pm. During most morning and evening meditation blocks, community members will have the chance to meet with the teacher to receive guidance on their spiritual practice.
